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Media Analysis: Search ties boost mobile internet(Marketing Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Deals struck by mobile networks with search engines are opening a new channel for advertisers. Marketers who rarely, if ever, access the internet on their mobile phone might not see it as a particularly alluring ad medium. Whatever the barriers for use - and there are several, including time, reliability and ease of use - last week's announcement of a tie-up between 3 and Yahoo!, which will see the portal's search, mail and messenger services run on the operator's mobile portal, marks the latest in a series of deals that are gradually making mobile internet an attractive proposition. 3 already has a deal with MSN to offer its messenger service, while Vodafone recently signed with the Google search service on its Live! portal, and stand-alone WAP sites such as eBay and Amazon are being used more by consumers as they find them more accessible. Mobile operators are helping to make these offerings more appealing by introducing pricing packages such as T-Mobile's Web 'n' Walk tariff, which gives unlimited access to mobile internet. This growing convergence between mobile and internet services, highlighted by Orange's rebranding of the Wanadoo ISP and Vodafone seeking fixed-line services to add to its portfolio in the UK, means advertisers should be more encouraged to use the mobile internet environment as a platform for promotional activity. However, mobile internet advertising is still in its infancy. Orange announced only last month that it is to open its Orange World portal to advertisers, offering full-scale mobile ad formats, from banners to location-based services, as part of a trial ahead of roll-out next year. Its operation in the UK is slightly behind that in France, where brands including Coca-Cola, Twentieth Century Fox and Citroen are pioneering the service. Transferrable formats Dusan Hamlin, a former media director at Carat, who set up mobile agency Inside, which has secured a global mobile contract for Adidas, believes that while it is encouraging that mobile operators are striving to get more advertising on their portals, not every format used online will translate onto mobile. 'A banner on a mobile portal would be a quarter of the size that it would be online and would cost the brand a lot more,' he says. 'Mobile phones are a very personal device, not like a PC, and I am not sure that banners would connect with consumers on that level.' Despite this assessment, O2 in the UK is rumoured to be following in the footsteps of its German counterpart, which has already run an ad trial on the O2 Active portal in Germany with brands including BMW and Adidas. 3's head of content products, Mark Joseph, says his company wants to demonstrate that there is a market for mobile content and therefore opportunities for advertisers. 3 already has experience in this arena, having lined up Nokia to sponsor X-Factor clips on its Planet 3 portal last year and, more recently, featured TV-style ad spots from Canon and EA games on its World Cup TV service Berlin or Bust. Joseph believes mobile advertising has a long way to go before it can challenge other media, but the advantage it has over internet access via a PC is that operators know more about their customers because they have billing details, including postcodes. 'We have the potential to create value for advertisers that is significantly higher than the value of internet advertising as we have information on the people who are viewing the ads,' he says. 'We can target those people and there is great potential there, but it is in its infancy.' It is not only personal information that mobile operators can offer advertisers; they can also identify the exact location of their customers when their phones are in use, allowing advertisers to not only target based on demographic information, but also by geographic location. Location-based services such as 'nearest' finders have been available to mobile users for a few years, but these are not often used by mobile advertisers. Thomas Husson, a mobile analyst at Jupiter Research, believes it is possible that certain advertising models will be adopted as mobile advertising becomes mainstream. One format he believes will become popular is the use of sponsored links on location-based services, with a payment model similar to the way Google charges advertisers to display their ads on keyword searches. 'Advertising models such as sponsored links, short animated ads and pay-per-call ads will start to emerge,' he says. 'It is still early days for location-based services, but in the mid-term new strategies will appear.' Search opportunities These services will take time to develop, but established online markets, such as search, are already being mined for mobile revenue. Part of the Yahoo! deal with 3 will see Yahoo! index all of 3's content and allow the internet firm to sell pay-per-click advertising alongside search results, just as it does online. The main obstacle to search marketing taking off on the mobile platform is user numbers; the model only works with a critical mass of searches being made. 'It is a new medium and we have to be realistic,' says Mitch Lazar, vice-president of business development, Europe, at Yahoo! 'It is all about the number of queries that users enter into the search box, but we have an opportunity to create a media model that works.' Encouraging users to start using these data services will depend on the operators reducing their desire to squeeze money from consumers through charges. The first signs of this are evident with T-Mobile's Web 'n' Walk service. Another restriction is being addressed by the handset manufacturers, which are designing bigger screens for their new phones. Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go before mobile internet adopts an advertiser-funded model and reduces its dependency on charging for content and services. |